Just a quick mention of a script Iv finished recently.
UV Win- > Image -> “Billboard Render on Active”
Its only in the CVS so if anyones interested in testing, please do.
Others have requested this script before so I thaught Id mention that Iv made a part solution.
It renders images onto quads and then packs the quads onto 1 texture, alpha clipping optional. so its usefull if you want to make a simple model with a few quads and use it as a LOD for a game or realtime scene.
This is not a 100% solution for everymody yet because it only works well with right angle quads. triangles rill raise an error and non right angle quads will render strangly.
For me this is ok but I can see others may want somthing that works ofr any mesh you throw at it. later on I could add support for arbitary faces.
If you want to look at the script
http://projects.blender.org/viewcvs/viewcvs.cgi/blender/release/scripts/image_billboard.py?rev=HEAD&cvsroot=bf-blender&sortby=date&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup
However its makes heavy use of BPyRender.py imageFromObjectsOrtho’s which now has a optional camera matrix arg. so you can define a plane in space to render (x and y scale define theY/X rendersize)
______________ heres the docstring.
Render Billboard Script
This can texture a simple billboard mesh from any number of selected objects.
Renders objects in the selection to quad faces on the active mesh.
Usage
- Light your model or enable the shadless flag so it is visible
- Make a low poly mesh out of quads with 90d corners. (this will be you billboard mesh)
- Select the model and any lamps that light it
- Select the billboard mesh so that it is active
- Run this script, Adjust settings such as image size or oversampling.
- Select a place to save the PNG image.
- Once the script has finished running return to the 3d view by pressing Shift+F5
- To see the newly applied textures change the drawtype to ‘Textured Solid’